


Figured On Not Figuring Myself Out

by Sleepyb0y



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Flirting, Crisis of Faith, Eugene is confused, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Flashbacks, Friends to Lovers, I Don't Even Know, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Picnics, Pining, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Self-Esteem Issues, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Slow Dancing, Smoking, Snafu is confused by Eugene being confused
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-06-20 16:01:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15537831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sleepyb0y/pseuds/Sleepyb0y
Summary: And I've traced your shadows on the wall now I kiss them whenever I'm down.In which Eugene struggles to deal with life after the war. Cue Snafu.Eventually they will get the happy ending they deserve I swear to God.





	1. Chapter 1

There was a haze of lilac and grey where the wheat kernels were shedding that made the fields look like ocean spray as they moved in the breeze. There was no wind behind the glass though and the stiff collar of Eugene's shirt wilted in the magnified Alabama sun. The trees and fields passed him by, one after the other, and he began to recognise the steady change in terrain. Despite the years that spanned between them, Eugene’s memories lay picture perfect next to the scene before him, right down to the rows of field maize. The only change was the dispersal of wildflowers like spilt sugar across the grass. His eyes flashed back from the window pane as the train dipped beneath a particularly dark patch of trees and he sees his face reflected in the glass. It’s only been two years but he can see the difference shown starkly against the landscape of his home state. He’s changed a lot from the boy who begged his parents to go to war, to follow his friends into battle, he’s just not really sure who he is now. He wonders as he chews the end of his pipe if things will just go back to the way they were before. His heart skips a beat when he thinks about Deacon, about where his father has buried him, and how he’ll fill the long, summer days without him. He doesn’t have long to think though because the train begins to pass into Mobile.

 

*

 

As the train pulled into the station Eugene cast one last look at the empty chairs where he and his comrades had sat and exchanged jokes and cigarettes over the past few days. There was a hollow feeling as if a bowling ball was stuck in his chest behind his rib cage as his eyes lingered for a moment too long on the seat directly opposite him. He summoned a scrap of courage from beneath the cavity inside him and bit down on the tip of his pipe as he resolutely stood and turned to leave the carriage. From this angle, he could see a familiar figure stood on the platform. Although his shoulders were broader and covered in a well-fitting smart suit and tie combination they could not detract from the crooked smile plastered on the man’s face.

 

Eugene jumped from the train and couldn’t help the way his mouth stretched into a grin at the sight of his old friend.

 

“You gon’ take this from me or what?” He quipped, throwing his sack of belongings at Sid who caught it, although Eugene could tell it knocked the air from him a little.

 

“Good to see you, Eugene,” Sid said softly, his smile never wavering as he placed the sack in the back seat of his car. He’s softened a little, Eugene mused, climbing into the passenger side. He’d put on a bit of weight, though that was understandable after nothing but maggoty rice and filthy water and then coming home to peace and southern hospitality. He looked older though, still clinging to youth in parts of his face but he had grown into his body, finally and he looked well for it. Eugene tried not to think about the way his body looked underneath his dress greens; he’d been soft before the war too but combat and starvation had carved its way into his flesh and now he knew too well the way his bones contorted beneath his skin. The thought made him shiver despite the heat of the Alabama summer beating down on the side of his face from the car window. Eugene dug inside his jacket, pulled out his pipe and stuck it between his teeth. The motion of rolling it around with his tongue seemed to lessen the sudden anxiety blossoming behind his eyes. Sid pulled away from the station in a cloud of dust and set off down the road, the breeze generated from the movement a welcome relief to Eugene’s sweaty brow.

 

“It’s so good to see you, Eugene,” Sid said again and Eugene noted the lengthened vowels of the southern accent he had lost slightly in Guadalcanal. His fingers drummed absent-mindedly on the steering wheel as he chuckled, “What’s with the MacArthur bit?”

 

“Huh?” Eugene turned, letting the butt of his pipe hang from his mouth lazily as he appraised his old friend. With another glance away from the road in his direction, Sid laughed again and mimed the motion of smoking a pipe.

 

“The mammy Yokum…” Sid said, nodding his head towards Eugene, laughing. “Popeye the sailor…”

 

Eugene grinned, finally understanding the joke, as he looked at the smoking apparatus in his hands and shrugged:

 

“It calms me down- packing it, cleaning it.” He ran his thumb down the polished mahogany the way he had done so many times before and sighed a little. “Always have something to do.” There was a silence then. A moment of quiet understanding passed between the two men as they involuntarily recalled the moments of relief they had shared with friends; a quick drag of a cigarette then maybe a swig of some unnameable spirit. They hadn’t smoked before the war. Eugene suddenly remembers how he had protested at first and his stomach does that swooping thing when he hears the indignant ‘yeah’ of response that had followed echo in his skull. It had been dragged out in that insufferable Louisiana drawl as if to say ‘just you wait.’ And of course, hours later Eugene had taken his first desperate drag on a Lucky Strike.

 

“What do you remember about Mary Houston?” Sid asked suddenly. Eugene started, the image of hooded eyes and a flash of teeth shattered by this sudden interruption. He looked over at Sid who was smirking slightly.

 

“The Mary Houston?” Eugene remembers her of course. She had been the most beautiful girl in Mobile. He had no doubt that she had grown into a beautiful woman since the war. He wondered why Sid brought her up now and the twist in his stomach at the expression on Sid’s face made him feel sick in a way that he had almost forgotten. “Well, like everybody else in mobile, I was in love with Mary Houston,” Eugene laughed nervously. Not entirely a lie. He had once, when he was very young, given her a bouquet of posies. His mother had asked him if he wanted to marry her and the child in him who knew very little of life and love had said yes. Sid continued to smile from the seat next to him which made Eugene’s stomach do that twisty thin again.

 

“That's too bad for you. She's marrying me,” Sid laughed, only one hand on the wheel now, the other resting confidently on the seat beside him.

 

“Yeah, sure she will, the day she goes blind,” Eugene laughed back almost immediately. He was chewing the tip of his pipe again.

 

“Well, I asked her. She said yes, so you're just gonna have to deal with it, brother,” Sid grinned, eyes on the road now.

 

“You're saying that Mary Houston is gonna be Mary Houston Phillips?” Eugene said slowly.

 

“In the eyes of God and the law,” Sid replied, the last word drawn out in true Alabama style as gave Eugene a cocky grin. Eugene returned the smile weakly though he hoped it didn’t show. He wanted to be happy for his best friend.

 

“Well, what am I gonna hear next? That Martians landed downtown? They're setting up a hotel?” Eugene flung his arms up in the air dramatically but he was starting to laugh now too seeing the soppy smile plastered on Sid’s face.

 

“I want you to be my best man,” Sid said after he stopped laughing. Eugene’s heart thumped against his chest but he managed to spit out some coherent words,

 

“If you think that I'm gonna stand at the altar and lose Mary Houston to the likes of you-- - Well, hell yes!” The final words he punctuated with the sound of the horn as he leaned over and hit it with the palm of his hands, much to Sid’s surprise, as he yelped and swerved the car in an ‘S’ shape along the road.

 

When Sid drops him off at the end of the road to his house Eugene wonders as the car pulls away into the distance if Sid remembers. Eugene pictures the long summer days scaling trees and Sid collecting river water in his cupped hands to slosh over his grazed knees and then kissing them better chastely followed by a toothless grin. The daisy chains, the picnics, the grass fights that ended with Eugene grasping a shred of courage and placing an innocent kiss on Sid's shocked lips. He had laughed and kissed him back and they had walked all the way home with fingers intertwined before their parents told them off.

 

But that was years ago now.

 

Sid grew out of it, of course.

 

Eugene didn't.

 

*

 

That night Eugene lay awake in his old bed- the pillows far too plump, the mattress far too soft- and stared at the dust dancing in the shaft of moonlight that stretched from the window to the door. His limbs were heavy with the fatigue of two years of poor sleep and a cramped train compartment seat but his mind was alert like a match that had just been struck. It felt as though the expanse of the time passed was stretching out before his eyes in the darker shadows of his room, all the loss magnified in the gloom, as the heavy feeling in his chest returned to sit conspicuously on his sternum. The Alabama summer nights were hot and sweaty, something he should be used to by now, but the perspiration that relentlessly slipped across his upper lip was becoming an annoyance. The sheets were too clean, too crisp; they felt alien on his skin which had been toughened by months of sleeping outside. Everything felt wrong. He was home, at last, that was true. But home had not waited for him. Things had changed; not enough that they were beyond recognition but enough that he felt like an outsider in what should have been familiar surroundings. Even his room, that his mother had kept laid out the same way, had an alien smell to it. He had torn the dress blues from the wardrobe door the moment he had entered and seen them hanging there like a spectre. They were now stuffed inside, the doors slammed shut, but it felt like they were expanding and pushing at the constraints of the wooden structure. If Eugene had listened closely he was sure he would have heard the wardrobe creak and groan under the pressure. But a distant noise had drawn his attention out of the window. From where he lay, he could not see the view from the window, just the sideways view of the window pane. He lay like a coiled spring waiting for the noise to happen again. Somewhere in the humid night-time, amidst the song of the cicadas, a car backfired. Or someone slammed a door. Or a roar of thunder cracked and rolled through the swollen sky. The source of the noise was unimportant. Eugene didn’t care. His chest was suddenly much tighter than before as though someone had wrapped a belt around his rib cage. A wave of prickly heat washed over him, starting at his toes, licking along every inch of his body in a way which made bile rise in his throat. Was it suddenly darker in his room? He couldn’t tell. He only knew that he had to get out. He had to get out right now or he would die. The dress robes would burst from the wardrobe suddenly animated and deadly. The ceiling would collapse, raining down around his ears. The sheets around him would squelch and churn all at once becoming a deadly quagmire, rain-logged and stinking of rotten corpses and gunpowder, as he scrambled in vain to tear himself free. The rising tide felt sure it would drown him as the pressure in his chest grew accompanied now by a ringing in his ears that was so loud he felt sure his eardrums had burst and were bleeding down his cheeks. He tried to wrench himself out of the bed but there was something holding him down. He tried to bend his spine against the weight of it but his limbs were lead and limp at his sides. And he could hear shouting now; men all around him screaming. The noise was deafening. He felt the mud on his skin like molasses rising around him. Soon he wouldn't be able to breathe, the viscous sludge filling his nose and mouth, swelling in his lungs. The roaring in his ears was building like a relentless siren and Eugene scrunched his eyes shut as tight as he could as if this would prevent his skull from shattering from the pressure. His heart was pounding against his chest, the noise of the blood rushing through his veins echoing in his ears. There was another noise too, far off and dream-like, as if playing on a different frequency. It was a voice, not panicked like the screams sounding off around him, but urgent and commanding. He was vaguely aware that the voice was speaking to him, was saying his name, was calling out to him.

 

“Gene, you gotta wake up.”

 

There was a sensation Eugene could only describe as being pulled forwards by a strong wind; a force that seemed to take hold of his lower ribs and wrench him up and out of the sinkhole, the cacophony of sirens and screams replaced all too quickly by the ringing silence of the night. His whole body was alight and tingling like a shook up soda can but in his daze he realised that he could move again, his hands automatically groping for the source of the voice, that familiar Cajun drawl he knew would be accompanied by those too-big eyes and curled smirk of a mouth.

 

 

But he wasn’t there. There was no one there. He wasn’t in his foxhole; there weren’t any shells, or screams or gunfire. There was just his empty room, a-buzz with the shimmering of his newly awoken eyes adjusting to the dark and the chittering of the cicadas in the hot, unending night.

 

 

*

 

 

Eugene did not allow himself to fall asleep again. Instead, he strained his eyes against the pages of his tattered Bible, deciphering the scribbles in the margin, thumbing the graphite indents which marked the days that passed on the Pacific shores. He counted each individual one again and again until his eyes were red raw and swollen from rubbing. When he could count no more he slipped the Bible under his pillow and resigned himself to staring at the ceiling. It couldn’t be more than a few hours away from dawn now, he thought, his hands splayed across his bare chest, his sweat-soaked nightshirt long since discarded at the bottom of his bed. There was a specific isolation that came with being the only person awake in the house; at least when he was on watch he knew that there were others around him holding the same vigil, united in purpose. In this moment, Eugene knew he was alone. If his screams had awoken his parents they had not disturbed him and if the silence of the house was anything to go by they were asleep again now. He sighed, resisting the pull of slumber by blinking fiercely when he felt himself slipping and running his tongue over the roof of his mouth in a way which made him flinch from the over-stimulation. That was a trick he had learnt in Pavuvu; the first of many. Can’t possibly fall asleep when your mouth feels that fucking weird. He fidgeted in the twisted cocoon of sheets damp with his own sweat until- frustrated- he kicked them off onto the floor. This offered little relief from the heat but left him feeling naked and exposed despite his pyjama pants. He propped himself up on his right elbow and absent-mindedly fiddled with the waistband. He’d lost weight- obviously. His hip bones were far more visible than they ever had been in his life before. He let his right-hand snake up his bare side as if the loneliness he felt was a tangible thing that could be mapped with the pads of his fingers, across each protruding rib, as he imagined…imagined what, he wasn’t exactly sure. There were places his mind had drifted to during the war, in the fragile stillness of a night crouched in his foxhole, that he would not allow it to go now it was over. War does stuff to men. Thoughts that were alien once before had wormed themselves into the deepest corners of his brain. Thoughts of desperation, of cruelty and-

 

Eugene flipped himself over onto his stomach with a soft oomph. He would not allow his subconscious to be the death of reason. _The worst part about treating those combat boys from the Great War wasn't that they'd had their flesh torn, it was that they had had their souls torn out._ His father’s voice rang in his ears. Had he lost his soul? Surely not. Fragmented, maybe, broken, possibly. But lost? Eugene huffed out a breath he didn't realise he had been holding in and allowed his eyes to roll slightly in his head with frustration at the lack of relief the puff of air gave his brow. His auburn hair was black with sweat and stuck in limp strands to his pale forehead. He scrubbed it vigorously with the back of his hand and rolled back onto his back, this time determined not to let his thoughts stray to the darker matter of his brain. But the notion that he had left a part of himself behind on a lonely, sun-soaked island would not leave him be. He was no longer the boy with the heart murmur, who arrived with a bible clasped to his heart and a thirst to prove himself. He was no longer Sledgehammer of K/3/5 mortar squad. So, what was he now? His old nickname played on the tip of his tongue but he bit the inside of his cheek as if to hold it back. That too had been lost to a missed goodbye at the New Orleans train station.

 

 

*

 

The weeks formed an unending cycle of waiting up for rosy dawns, stumbling through the grass barefoot, passing out on the lawn chairs and waking up minutes later, sweat-drenched and shaking. War is hard and cruel and bitter, Eugene knew this. But no one tells you how to live once it’s over. Everything is too raw, too harsh, too bright, Eugene thought, as though he’d been wearing the wrong glasses for months and now he could finally see everything for what it was. He was overwhelmed and exhausted. He found a small solace in the comforts his childhood home brought with it but his skin was scrubbed raw as though he could never quite clean off the filth that accumulated thereafter Peleliu and Okinawa. He was drinking a lot too, a small exchange with his brother saw him sneaking glugs of liquor into his coffee. It was enough to allow him a few hours of dozy rest in the shaded garden chair but never enough for the night. As the sulky sky bled like ink into the evening darkness Eugene found himself becoming more and more agitated, each night finding something new to pass the time, each night failing to stop the inevitable plunge into the nightmarish world his brain entered into behind his closed eyelids. They were always the same: oozing mud, rain, jungle heat, screams, the glint of a gold tooth or two, the festering coral rock...and him, somewhere off in the distance. Eugene knew it was stupid to wake up looking for him. Yet he did it every time.

 

"Hey sledgehamma', you think we'll make it?" the voice said tonight. Eugene saw a million stars reflected in those misty, vacant eyes, staring up at the flares wavering above their foxhole. He was ephemeral too just like them. Eugene tried harder this time to turn around to face him properly but as soon as he pushed against the force holding him down the scene before him shattered, just like the flare disappearing into the night. Just like him. He awoke spluttering, gasping for air, his cheeks stained with tears as he clenched his fists into his eye sockets. The frustration burned deep behind his forehead and down into the pit of his stomach as he let the stuttering sobs escape his lips. The anger that crept into his dreams had so far been masked by the sense of danger and confusion he had originally felt but the closer he got to a resolution, the worse he felt. The sense of betrayal that oozed into him like an icy sickness and the bitter taste of disappointment in his friend lingered on his tongue far longer than Eugene could bare. Two years. Two years and just- nothing. Eugene picked up his pillow and threw it across the room, the bible he had hidden beneath it skidding off the bed and onto the floor. It landed spread open, loose pages skittering across the wooden boards and Eugene sighed in exasperation before resolutely turning to swing his legs over the side of his bed. He exhaled slowly through the gaps in his fingers as he rested his head in his hands. His body was still shaking but the dream was losing its grip on him the longer he was awake. It felt distant now; a faded photograph like the ones he had taken to war with him. Not quite tangible, just a thought imprinted on a piece of paper. His eyes were drawn to one particular scrap of paper that had fallen out of his bible upon impact with the floor. It was a corner of a page, ripped and folded up tightly. Eugene imagined it had been accidentally stuffed into the dust jacket pocket because up until that moment in time he was sure he had lost it. His heart was hammering again now, picking its pace back up and he could hear the blood rushing through his ears. He moved to stand over the paper, his weight making the floorboards creak and adjust beneath his bare feet, his tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip. Eugene could just make out a handwritten scrawl on one of the corners that had started to unfold in the fall. His hand shook as he picked it up and carefully straightened out the creases. He'd told him off so many times for writing in it, Eugene thought, his mind already making that trip over the ocean again.

 

_"Saw you readin' last night," Snafu had said in his dry, lilting tones, coming up beside Eugene, his obscurely vacant eyes roving over him. Eugene started, realising the implication. He pulled out the little book from his pocket and raised his eyebrows,_

_"My Bible?" He questioned, watching Snafu carefully. He was even more of an enigma back then in those early days._

_"Writin', too. Ain't supposed to write shit down, you know," Snafu continued, shaking his head slightly, the corner of his mouth quirked. "Gives the Japs valuable intel if they find it."_

_"Guess I won't show it to 'em, then," Eugene fired back, shrugging. Snafu's face cracked into a genuine grin then, a sight which had looked so bizarre it made Eugene laugh. There had been smiles before; mischievous, knowing, calculating but never honest. Eugene had always felt that Snafu had been laughing at him but this time he was in on the joke. That smile had been the beginning, he thought. Grinning, Snafu had replied,_

_"Got a smoke?" And Eugene had handed him his last two cigarettes. "Thanks, sledgehamma'."_

_"'Sledgehammer.' I like that," Burgin had laughed. And so, the nickname was born._

 

Eugene didn't feel much like he was living up to his name, standing half-naked, shaking in the middle of the night, staring at the few lines of script between his fingertips. He knew what it was, even in the illegible scrawl he knew what it was. Snafu had written it down a few days before they shipped out but Eugene had looked for it in vain when he got back to Mobile and considered it lost in transit. But here it was. Four lines of words: an address in New Orleans. His mouth was suddenly very dry and he felt a bead of sweat leave his hairline at the nape of his neck and run down his spine. It made him shiver and it was the shiver that seemed to set something off inside of him as he crossed his room in three strides and sat down at his writing desk. In the top drawer was a personalised stationery set his parents had given to him in the hope he would take it to college before he enlisted. That dream seemed distant now but Eugene selected a blank postcard from the top of the pile- one with a picture of wildflowers and their Latin names- and set it down on the wood of the desk, face down. The blank side stared back at him ominously and his eyes never left it as he blindly selected a pen to write with. He only blinked when the nib was hovering over the vacant line marked ‘addressee.’ He made the shape of an ‘S’ in the air above the paper but did not press down. Snafu had not even been called that before the war; it was unlikely he had taken that name home with him. But the only time Eugene had dared use his first name Snaf had tried to sock him one. He settled instead on M. Shelton then robotically copied the address, the words looking starkly different in his cursive handwriting compared to Snafu's scribbled letters. Eugene smirked a little at that, knowing that Snafu would have made some comment about his posh schools and fancy pens while sucking on a cigarette. Then he moved his pen to the left side of the postcard and paused again. There were a thousand things on the tip of his tongue he wished he could say let alone write and suddenly the whole idea seemed stupid and futile. He went to sweep the postcard off the desk into the wastepaper basket at the side of his chair but his hand froze for the third time. There was a pain in his chest that was pulsating and he felt sick and warm. His eyes were watering a little now from the way his teeth worried his bottom lip and he closed his eyes and swallowed hard. It occurred to him that is was moments like these that he was supposed to pray but it had been so long since he had abandoned prayer in the deep jungles of the Pacific. He had not seen God there.

 

He scribbled out his own address, a little messily, before he could change his mind and added, slower this time, a few more words at the end:

 

_Write back?_

_Eugene._

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently it's sledgefu week?

Two months or so passed and Eugene felt himself falling into despair. The weather in Mobile had been steadily getting hotter, the air pressure building, giving everyone in the Sledge household a headache. Eugene was still not sleeping well. Sometimes when he would awake from another nightmare he would hear his parents outside his room, concerned, but he ignored them. What use was there in telling them what plagued his dreams? He found a little relief in the earliest hours of the morning when the day was breaking, walking bare-footed across the cool floors of the downstairs rooms in the house. At this time it was shaded and silent and he could wander about in his dressing gown without being tutted at by his mother. She had been on at him for the last week to get up and go into town but Eugene had resolutely told her that he wasn’t going to do that. The last time he left the expanse of his parent’s property was to accompany Sid and Mary to a party which he inevitably left early from. Ignoring the advice from his brother to wear his dress uniform, he had worn a simple shirt and slacks and watched as he always had from a safe corner of the room. He had felt too exhausted to talk and mingle and had instead resolutely clung to the edge of the crowds, looking at his feet whenever someone passed close by him. The soft rustling of ladies in taffeta and silk dresses made to entice men like they were sweets echoed in his ears as he stared down at his shoes- he hated the façade of it all and he knew he didn’t belong.

 

It had been weeks since he had sent his postcard and there had been no reply despite Eugene regimentally checking the mailbox every morning. His worst fears were beginning to fully form in his mind: that Snafu had really meant to leave him and their friendship behind when he left that train.

 

On a particularly hot afternoon in early July, Eugene sat out on one of the lawn chairs, a glass of southern sweet tea clasped in his hand. His sweat, mixed with the condensation on the glass meant the droplets of water ran down his wrists in a way which reminded him uncomfortably of the rain in Peleliu. He set the glass down on the little table next to him and shook the water off his hands. At first, he’s unsure what’s happening because it feels like the water is coming right back onto his fingertips despite his frantic movements. It’s only when he feels it on the tip of his nose too that he realises it’s raining. Finally. It hadn’t rained since he had returned to Mobile and he lifted his face up to the sky, grimacing at the sunlight disappearing behind grey-velvet storm clouds. It took all of about ten seconds for the rain to become a downpour and he grabbed his overflowing glass and ran back to the house, pausing on the porch to look out at the sheet rain sloshing on the hot, wet ground. There was a smell like metal and damp earth filling his lungs and he watched the plants and trees in the garden dance against the pummeling of the raindrops. At least they were getting life from this rain, unlike the destructive downpours he had been used to. He felt as though he should hate the way his pyjamas stuck to his back or how the droplets of water ran down his cheeks, his nose, his hair. He’d spent so long trying to get dry during the war that he had forgotten about the restorative power of the rain on dry, parched earth and the way a crack in the sky could break a month’s worth of migraines. He realised then he was gripping tightly to the railing of the porch that overlooked the garden with its windy path and now soaked lawn furniture. His knuckles were white with the way his fingertips dug into the damp wood and he closed his eyes and let the raindrops from the roof above drip onto his head. He stayed like that in a kind of reverent state, allowing himself to become soaked through to the bone until he slowly became aware he was shaking. Maybe it was the biblical rain or the need to be clean that had made him do it but he felt like if he stood there long enough the water would wash away the sins he felt he still carried with him. He brought his head up again, his whole body vibrating, the rain still crashing down around him and it was then he realised that he was laughing. It started small, just the shaking of his body and the crack of his dry lips as they opened slightly to smile, but turned into actual, side-splitting laughter soon enough. So much so that he had to hold himself up to stop from falling and he hadn’t a clue why. Maybe it was the quiet understanding that he wasn’t bothered by the rain, maybe it was the release of pressure in the air or maybe he’d finally lost his mind like all those shell-shocked souls he’d seen during and after the war. He didn’t know. All he knew was he was wiping his eyes with the corner of his sleeve in a futile attempt to see properly when he saw the figure standing at the end of the pathway to the garden. Somehow in his fit of laughter, they had managed to traverse the whole garden but had obviously stopped when they had seen Eugene laughing away on the porch. He felt silly for a moment, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows and manoeuvring around the wood posts of the porch to greet the stranger, hoping to gods it wasn’t someone who would tell the whole town about poor Eugene Sledge who never truly came back from the war after all. He found a macabre kind of humour in that too and snorted another laugh before his eyes settled properly on the figure before him and he stopped dead in his tracks at the top of the decking stairs.

 

He looked smaller than Eugene remembered but maybe that was because he was stood up on the porch or the fact his clothes were wet to his skin. Eugene had always been bigger but even now he looked wirier and more angular than before. He was wearing faded dungarees and a sun-stained t-shirt that was clinging to his dark skin in a way that made the fabric transparent. Eugene didn’t know when the fire in his throat started but as he appraised that feline face he knew it was stoked by the wry smile curving back across his teeth.

 

“Nice jammies, sledgehamma’,” Snafu said, dragging the vowels out so long at the end it hurt Eugene’s chest to hear it. That infuriating Louisiana accent sang its way into every single vein in his body matched only by the way Snafu’s stupid wide eyes dropped a little to drag up Eugene’s body, lazily and shamelessly just like him. “Though’ I’d come see-“

 

But Eugene had already started walking towards him and by the time he got close enough to see the concern flash in Snafu’s eyes he had punched him square in the face. The force of it coupled with being taken by surprise knocked Snafu clean off his feet and he landed squarely on the wet grass. Eugene wasted no time dropping to his knees and crawling over him, fisting his hands around his dungarees straps and pulling him up to face him.

 

“What the hell, Snaf?” He spat, shaking him. Snafu’s nose was bleeding now, mixing in with the rain rolling down his face. Eugene, infuriated with the way Snafu was just staring back at him with that half-lidded, open-mouthed stare, shook him again. “You leave without so much as a goodbye, ignore my letter and then show up at my house two months later grinning like an idiot?” Snafu steadied himself by grasping Eugene’s right hand which was still clasped around the strap of his dungarees. He was laughing, the sound muffled a little by the rain but still loud enough for Eugene’s stomach to do the twisty thing that he hated.

 

“I didn’ ignore it. S’why I’m here,” Snafu said as if it were the most obvious thing in the universe. Eugene, exasperated, let go of the denim strap and Snafu wavered a bit, getting his balance by leaning back on his elbows to look up at him. There were so many things Eugene wanted to say to him, mostly unpleasant, but they wouldn’t come. Here the difference between the two men lay bare like the bleached bones of the fallen in the soured Pacific sunshine. Eugene’s hands were shaking, the looming shadow of the past few weeks creeping up his spine in a chilling reminder. He had been through hell and back with the man in front of him but now he was living his own unique, personal hell and Snafu had let him do it alone.

“What the fuck,” Eugen muttered, scrunching his eyes shut against the rain. He didn’t know what to say. His nightmares had been haunted by visions of the only man on earth he dared to hope would understand how he was feeling yet here he was smirking and seemingly unchanged by the ordeal they had shared. “How are you okay?” His voice came out in a whisper this time but Snafu heard him. Even over the roaring of the rain against the ground, he heard. And he stood up. Eugene shook his head at him. “I needed you. I thought we were in this together. I thought we were friends.” He was shouting now and he knew it. Snafu had started to bring his hands up in a kind of surrender as though he was going to speak but Eugene cut him off. “How can you be okay? How can you be-“ But his throat was dry and words raw and broken. God, he felt sick now. The rain seemed suddenly warm on his skin and he was clawing at his pyjama top trying to undo the buttons but his hands were shaking so badly that he couldn’t get a grip on them. He was crying now too not that it mattered in the rain. Snafu tried to grab his hands but Eugene pulled away. He couldn’t bear to look at him now. He was vaguely aware that he’d fallen to his knees but he felt so nauseated and so tired that he didn’t care. His vision was blurred by the rain and the tears but he saw Snafu go to wrap his skinny brown arms around him before he felt it. He didn’t resist this time but let himself fall into it as he had done so many times towards the end in Okinawa. He could feel the hammering of Snafu’s heart beat against his back, hot and violent like he was pressed against a furnace. He couldn’t fight it though. He was so tired. Snafu was humming something, slurring a word or phrase every so often in French. Eugene clasped the exposed skin of Snafu’s arm like it was the only thing stopping him from being washed away in this storm.

 

“You’re okay, Gene,” he said against the skin of Eugene’s neck. “Come on now, you’re okay.”

 

 

*

 

 

Eugene’s mother had gone mad when she had seen him hobbling in from the aftermath of the storm, soaking wet with a stranger in tail. She looked at Snafu like he was something completely alien to her but her politeness never wavered as she offered him the spare room and laid out some of Eugene’s smaller clothes on the bed for him. Eugene had led his friend into the bathroom and pushed him down against the closed toilet seat with one hand, the other clasped firmly on his chin so as to tilt his face up to assess the damage. The rain had washed a lot of the blood off but the tell-tale signs of a bruise pooling beneath the skin were there and the bridge of his nose was swollen slightly. Eugene resisted the urge to run his thumb across the sharp ridge of Snafu’s jaw instead, resolutely avoiding eye contact and holding him steady. He made quick work of wiping the remaining rust of dried blood from his upper lip, ignoring the way Snafu licked after his movements and abruptly shivered at the taste of disinfectant. He could feel those pale eyes on him even when he was so close he was sure he was nothing but a blur to the man. Eugene pressed his lips together in concentration as the smell of damp and cigarettes mingled with the clinical smell of the solution he was using to clean with. He was so focused on not making it a big deal that he jumped when Snafu’s hand grabbed his wrist.

“Hurts,” Snafu croaked, his fingers tightly clasped to stop Eugene from dabbing at his face with the wet cotton wool in his hand. Eugene sniffed and cleared his throat, stepping back and putting his hands in his pockets. They were both still wet to the bone. Eugene supposed he should be a gracious host and let Snafu bathe and get dressed before he did but he wasn’t feeling particularly accommodating in that moment. Snafu was pinning him with one of those vacant stares he was so good at. It was an unsettling feeling, being watched like that and he could feel the colour rising in his cheeks. Eugene walked over to the sink to wash his hands and let out a long breath as the cool water washed over him. From behind him he heard a soft thud. He turned the tap off and rung his hands out as he turned. Snafu had shrugged out of his dungarees straps and shed his wet shirt onto the floor. He walked out of the bathroom without a word, leaving Eugene to pick his jaw up off the floor.

 

*

 

Eugene sat now, in the armchair in the corner of the room wrapped in a blanket, staring at Snafu like he couldn’t quite believe he was sat there bold as brass in his old clothes. Even they were a little too big for him, the sleeves on the t-shirt coming down to his skinny elbows. The way he sat on the edge of his bed, so out of place amongst the southern décor, like a naughty child was so bizarre that Eugene laughed out loud. Snafu looked up at him, nervously,

 

“What’s so funny?” He asked, his big eyes narrowing. Eugene shook his head, a little annoyed that his resolve had crumbled so easily but he couldn’t help the smile that was spreading across his face.

 

“You look stupid in that shirt,” Eugene said, at which Snafu seemed to visibly relax, the corner of his mouth curling into that classic shit-eating smile.

 

“Hey, I can’t help it if you’ve been over indulgin’ on the southern hospitality of your momma since you been home, Eugene,” he said in response, the second syllable of his name drawing out like an echo in that characteristic cajun way. Eugene would never admit it but it sounded better coming from his mouth than when anyone else said it. Something about the way he said the ‘gene’ part; he wasn’t sure what it was but Snafu made it sound exotic and interesting.

 

“Those clothes are like five years old,” Eugene said through a laugh but he looked down at himself in faux concern, “Why, what you trying t’say?” Snafu laughed then with his head tilted back lazily and with so many teeth on show that it could almost be unnerving.

 

“I ain’t sayin’ nothin’.”

 

“Good, I don’t want to have to kick you out already,” Eugene said, happy they were back to their old level of banter so quickly.

 

“I don’t think your folks would mind, they lookin’ at me like I’m ‘bout steal the silver,” Snafu joked but there was a waver in his voice that gave away his concern. He was leaning back on his elbows, his legs still splayed off the bed at weird angles like a spider.

 

“Nah, they just ain’t seen anyone like you before,” Eugene said getting up and pulling the blanket around his body a little tighter.

 

“Oh they seen folk like me before, they just seen ‘em sweeping their floors not making a wet puddle on them then takin their clothes to wear,” Snafu replied, pretending to be fiddling with the embroidery on the edge of the quilt but Eugene could see him watching his reaction from beneath his eyelids. He responded by sitting down next to him on the bed hard, making him jump a little off the mattress.

 

“Hey, they’re my clothes,” he said prodding his finger into one of Snafu’s more prominent ribs. “You’re my guest. Besides my parents are probably just happy to see me talking I think they were just about ready to cart me off with the other mental cases.” Eugene tried to make this sound light-hearted but there was a truth to what he had just said. He’d seen the way they looked at him, heard the hushed conversations behind closed doors. Maybe it showed on his face because Snafu sat up straight then and looked at him with those big, obnoxious eyes,

 

“It really been that bad, Gene?”

 

“I mean it can never be as bad as the war, can it? I just thought…I dunno,” Eugene was rubbing the back of his neck now, not sure if he wanted to go into the exact details of his nightmares. Especially when one of the reoccurring stars of his dreams was sat so close to him.

 

“I nearly got arrested back in N’Orleans…some damn kids set off some firecrackers outside…” Snafu said after a brief moment of silence. He was laughing but weakly, shaking his head. “Shit, I damn near lost ma mind.” There was no urgency in that voice, just the usual languid tone in which Snafu always spoke but there was a hint of something there that Eugene had only heard a few times before back in the Pacific on some god-forsaken island. It seemed to break down the wall that Eugene had put up in the time they had been apart, built on bitterness and resentment, but it was crumbling.

 

“What do you do to stop it?” Eugene asked in a small voice, his eyes trained on his own legs laid out in front of him.

 

“Whiskey an’ bad decisions,” Snafu grinned back before reaching off the bed, rooting around in his bag and producing a slightly squashed carton of Lucky Strikes. He selected one and tucked it behind his ear, held in place by a wiry curl. “You still smokin’ that pipe o’ yours?”

 

*

 

 

Sat in fresh pyjamas, barefoot and smoking on the porch steps, Eugene stared at the man sat beside him. Snafu was sprawled out, his legs looking longer than usual with his borrowed pyjama legs rolled up at the bottom, his shirt unbuttoned to expose his bony chest. He had a cigarette clasped between his thumb and forefinger which he held up in front of his face as though inspecting it before putting it between his lips to take a long, deep drag. The smoke from his inhale escaped slowly from his nose in curls, not unlike the ones on his head. Eugene had laughed at the way they had dried after the rain, tousled and sticking up, the way he had seen so many times back in the war but unsurprisingly far more whimsical back home in Alabama. Eugene sucked on the end of his own pipe, tapping it against his molars occasionally between puffs and the quick side glances he offered Snafu during their fragmented conversations. The heat of the day had left the air this late into the evening but there was still a warmth that wrapped itself around them and held them there as the wisteria blew above them in the breeze. There was a comfortable tiredness in Eugene’s limbs that he had not felt in a while, one that he could make peace with. Snafu sighed next to him and exhaled a cloud of pale smoke,

 

“Your home is jus’ how I thought it’d be,” he said thoughtfully. Eugene leaned back and squinted at him,

 

“How’d you mean?”

 

“Big house. Momma and Daddy worryin’ ‘bout you,” he gestured above their heads with his cigarette hand. “Flowers.” Eugene laughed at that. “You’re a proper little southern belle.”

 

“I’m not,” Eugene protested but Snafu wasn’t having it,

 

“Ain’t never seen noone with skin like yours,” He waved his cigarette at him then stuck it between his teeth and chewed the end a little. “All pearly and powdered.” Eugene suddenly felt like he was being scrutinised by those glassy eyes and he felt the heat rise up his neck to his cheeks. Snafu ground out his cigarette on the decking and leaned forwards, all up in his space, his face inches from Eugene’s. There was a moment when Eugene was scared to breathe but when he did it was all cigarette smoke and sweat and sawdust and he felt a tingling in his throat like he’d inhaled something hot and ashy. Snafu’s impossibly large eyes were still staring at him and Eugene had a brief flashback to a moment they’d shared so many months ago. This time it was Snafu who was checking on him. And only after a moment that lasted a little too long did Eugene realise what he was doing. “Yeah, you smell like a lady, Sledge. You wearin’ perfume?” Eugene shoved Snafu back laughing but taking note of the fact his heart wasn’t exactly beating normally anymore. Snafu grinned that sloppy smirk back at him.

 

“It isn’t my fault you ain’t never heard of soap, Shelton,” Eugene remarked, emphasising Snafu’s surname as though he were really scolding him.

 

“We can’t all be like you, boo,” Snafu said, reclining back on the step like a cat, stretching in the late evening sun. Eugene watched the way his pyjama shirt slipped off the side of his chest exposing his whole bare front right down to the trail of dark hair leading from his navel. Snafu yawned then, showing all of his teeth and looked back over his shoulder with that pouty look Eugene pretended to hate. “I think I’m bout to hit the hay, you ready?” Eugene nodded, although he wasn’t optimistic about his chances of sleep tonight, even if Snafu was just down the corridor, not as close as they were used to but there.

 

*

 

Eugene was proven right as he awoke scrambling and choking down his screams in the dark of his room a little past midnight. The book he had been reading had slipped off the bed with a thud as he jolted upright out of his sheets which made him cringe. He sat in the dark, hugging his knees, trying to steady his breathing as painlessly as he could. His lungs felt like they had been wrapped in cheese wire all night and even as his breath came more gently they twinged beneath his ribs. In, out, in out, in, out. He tried to count his breaths and stop his heart from racing. A tap on the door made him jump, his heartbeat stuttering again at the sudden noise. He stared at the door in fear and awe as it opened, something his parents never usually did. Which is why when Snafu slunk around the door in nothing but his rolled up pyjama pants Eugene mentally chastised himself for assuming it was them.

 

“What are you doing, Snaf?” He sighed, bringing the sheets up to his chest protectively. Snafu closed the door gently behind him then hovered in the space between it and the bed.

 

“Heard you screamin’,” he said in that blasé way he said everything but Eugene saw the flash of concern flit across his face.

 

“I’m fine, s’just a dream,” _A dream in which your head exploded right in front of me,_ he thought but did not say anything else, just sat and stared at the shapes the sheet had folded into in his fists. The shapes suddenly stretched as Snafu sat down on the bed next to him, his face illuminated in the moonlight from the window. He looked oddly innocent in that strange pale light.

 

“You wan’ talk about it?” He said slowly; he was doing the thing he did when Deacon died. It wasn’t quite comforting but he kinda felt comforted because he knew Snafu was trying his hardest to be comforting. It made sense to Eugene, so much so he almost laughed in his face but he resisted.

 

“Nah. Just the usual. Shells and dead Japs,” He sighed, scooting back so his back was flat against the headboard, keeping his hands clutched to his chest with the fists of sheet still clasped damp in his fingers. Snafu nodded solemnly then without a warning flopped backwards onto the bed so he was lying flat across the whole bed, squashing Eugene’s legs. “Ow, what the hell, Snaf?” Eugene keened, releasing his hold on the blankets and extracting his legs from underneath the Cajun boy. Even though he was bony as fuck Snafu was deceivingly heavy.

 

“Can’t get back to sleep now,” he said, throwing a brown arm dramatically over his eyes.

 

“Yes you can, get off,” Eugene said exasperated as he tried to roll Snafu off the bed but he wasn’t budging. The effort of trying to get his arms under Snafu’s body proved too much very soon though and Eugene couldn’t help but laugh at the way Snafu triumphantly rolled himself up into the sheets like a rug next to him.

 

“Can’t sleep,” he said from his cocoon beside Eugene. “Why don’t you read me a bedtime story from one o’ your fancy books.” He gestured to the pile on the desk by the bed.

 

“I don’t think you’d enjoy any of them particularly,” Eugene sighed, kneading the space between his eyebrows.

 

“As long as it ain’t your bible; I’m way past savin’,” Snafu laughed though it was muffled through the sheets as he rolled over to look up at Eugene. Eugene looked back at him, wrapped up like a present, wide-eyed even when he could see they were red from sleep.

 

“I’m not gonna read you anything,” Eugene said, folding his arms across his chest, refusing to play along with Snafu’s game.

 

“Then lie down and go t’sleep, boo,” Snafu yawned and Eugene stared at him. On the one hand, Snafu had seen enough of (and calmed him down from) more nightmares than he could count so there was no embarrassment factor there and yet he seemed extremely reluctant to try and attempt sleep again with Snafu there. Eugene knew it was ridiculous; they’d slept beside each other innumerable times but somehow this was weird. Him, Snafu, in a bed, in his parent’s house, it all seemed so ridiculous. It was only when a warm hand tugged on his arm and muttered something in broken French that Eugene made up his mind. He shuffled down, pulling what sheets he could get up to his chin and lay his head on the pillow next to Snafu’s. He was in half a mind to ask him to roll over; he wasn’t sure what he’d do if he awoke to those lamp-like orbs staring back at him in the darkness. Snafu, however, was already half asleep, his breathing starting to mellow out. Eugene stared at his sleeping face, taking the opportunity while his eyes weren’t open, to study the way it had changed over the years. He was growing into himself that was for sure, less awkward and gangly, but he had always thought Snafu to be quite odd looking. It was strange then, therefore, that there in this moment Eugene allowed himself to admit that Snafu’s resting features as he dozed off to sleep were actually quite handsome, though maybe it was the hazy blue light of the night that made them look so soft.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eugene and Snaf go for a drive and things get awkward.

It was the heat that woke him first, the sticky, sweaty feeling of pressure on his left side. Eugene groaned, stretching his arms out and immediately snatching them back when they came into contact with a foreign object in his bed. His eyes snapped open. Snafu was sprawled over the majority of his bed, one leg in and one leg out of the covers, with an arm lying ungracefully over Eugene’s stomach. He mentally chastised himself for panicking, picking up Snafu’s arm from the wrist and moving it off him carefully, so as not to wake his friend from an apparently very deep sleep. The light from the expectant dawn was just turning red outside the window and the glow set Snafu’s skin on fire with the way it danced through the shadow of the trees outside. He was in stark contrast with the sheets that had turned pink in the rosy haze of the impending sunrise. Eugene couldn’t help but stare at his friend in this strange peaceful moment. He had seen him sleep a thousand times, woken him just as many, but always in the dip of a muddy foxhole or from a rickety bunk. Never in this kind of halcyon moment of absolute stillness, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. It was at this point that Eugene realised he too had slept soundly for a few hours, for the first time in weeks. Even so, he cursed his brain for being so awake again at such an ungodly hour. He would have to wake Snafu too soon. His parents had been accommodating so far but he didn’t know how they would react should they come across their son in bed with Snafu. Which was ridiculous really thinking about it? Had they not slept side by side for two years, the worst two years of their lives, where the company they kept had been their only real source of comfort? Surely then, it was not so unusual for them to find solace sleeping in close quarters now that they were out and having to deal with the real world? But Eugene couldn’t kid himself into believing his parents, nor anyone else for that matter would be quite so understanding. They hadn’t been to war, hadn’t seen what he and Snafu had seen, would not- could not understand the need in this. No, if his parents found out, he had no trouble imagining how quickly their kindness towards Snafu would end. His mother was so desperate for him to be that young, fresh-faced boy he had been the day he had said goodbye to her. She would have no problem removing any and all attachment Eugene displayed towards the war, Snafu included. The thought bothered Eugene, like an itch at the back of his throat he couldn’t reach to scratch. The war happened. That couldn’t be changed. And he had done his service, served his purpose and now he, like so many others, had been abandoned to civilian life. The Marines didn’t care about how broken you were once the fighting was over. They would break you in every way possible to hone you into the best weapon they could. It didn’t matter to them if after it was all done and you could return home that you were woken every night to the deaths of your friends playing on repeat and the noise of shells exploding in your ears. He should be surprised that this thought never crossed his mind on the days he would dream about returning home to his family. How do you go back to a normal life when you’ve walked through hell and back, done unspeakable things, just to survive?

 

He shuffled to sit up, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. The movement seemed to rouse the sleeping Snafu from his slumber because he arched his back and groaned softly in protest.

 

“I swear to god, Sledge-“

 

“Sorry for waking you, your highness,” Eugene mumbled, watching as Snafu pulled himself into a sitting position and blinked slowly to adjust his eyes to the creeping daylight.

 

“Shit," Snafu muttered, pushing the flat of his palm into the hollow of his eye socket. "Should go." He untangled his willowy limbs from Sledge and the bed covers and got to his feet. The way he stretched his arms out in the shaft of light from the window reminded Eugene of waking him for watch. It was the same reluctant sense of purpose. There was a moment that could only have lasted for a few seconds but seemed to drag on for much longer as Snafu cast a fleeting glance over his bony shoulder at Eugene who was still sat in the bed like a crosshair was pinned to his chest. Then as silent as the night, Snafu slunk out, the door barely opening to accommodate his small frame.

 

***

 

By mid-morning, the two were lingering in the cool shade of the kitchen as the summer heat had already taken hold. Snafu had clambered up onto the surfaces and was idly swinging his legs, a move Eugene had only allowed because his parents had walked into town about half an hour before. Eugene, having refused to fall back asleep, had strategically waited until after his parents had had breakfast to wander downstairs to save the awkwardness of them questioning Snafu over a sit-down meal. They had long since stopped trying to coax Eugene to sit down and eat with them, rather, they had taken to leaving portions of leftovers in the kitchen for him to pick at. It was these that held his attention now as he prodded the soft rolls of bread left out for them on the countertop, debating which one to select.

 

“What we doin’ today sledgehamma’?” Snafu said, lazily watching a bee buzz against the glass of the window. Eugene looked up from buttering his bread and squinted, the sun giving Snafu’s curls a bright, undulating halo.

 

“Ain’t nothing much to do in Mobile,” He replied, tearing off a crust and eating it. Snafu clicked his tongue idly. “Besides, it’s too hot to do anything.”

 

“Could go for a drive,” Snafu suggested, his head tilted in the direction of Edward Sledge’s glossy Ford parked on the driveway.

 

“My Dad doesn’t like me to drive it without him.”

 

“You always do what your Daddy tells you?” Snafu challenged, his tongue dragging over every syllable of the question, eyebrows raised incredulously. Eugene narrowed his eyes and huffed but he had to admit the idea of just getting out of Mobile was appealing.

 

After they had had their fill of the breakfast left overs, the two of them walked across the dusty drive towards the car. Eugene, already sporting a damp sheen on his face, wiped his forehead with his hand.

 

“Y’alright there?” Snafu said, tilting his chin up to look him in the eye.

 

“Yep,” Eugene said, letting his mouth pop at the end. “Just hot.”

 

“I ain’t got a clue how you survived the war. Ginger white kid in the Pacific,” Snafu smirked, shaking his head while leaning cockily on the side of the car. “Two years and still as white as the day you were born. Gained a few more o’ these though.” He ran his finger across the first bit of exposed skin he could reach to trace the cluster of freckles on Eugene’s forearm in a way which made Eugene flinch.

 

“Shut up.”

 

Snafu made his way around to the passenger side and hopped in, slamming the door a little too hard for Eugene’s liking, making him jump a little. God, why was he so on edge? He put it down to the fact he was about to deliberately disobey his father and go for a joy ride with his unpredictable asshole of a best friend. His hands were sweaty on the steering wheel when he finally settled in the driver’s seat. He could feel his heart thrumming steadily against his chest as he turned the car around. The feeling was short lived however because as soon as the car started to pick up speed down the road, Eugene’s concerns seemed to blow away with the force of the breeze through the open windows. Snafu wound his down further to hang his head out like a dog.

 

“How come he doesn’t let you drive alone?” Snafu called out over the noise of the wind whistling through the window as they drove down the driveway and out onto the road. “Doesn’t want you picking up the ladies?” Eugene inwardly cringed. Why was everyone so bothered about his love life? His own brother had berated him for retaining his virginity despite going to war as if the two things were even remotely related. Eugene cleared his throat, eyes fixed firmly on the road.

 

“Probably doesn’t want me to get myself killed.”

 

“Let you go to war, didn’t he?” Snafu fired back uncharacteristically quickly.

 

“He didn’t want me to,” Eugene retorted, licking his lips. “I err...I went because of Sid.” He wasn’t sure why his grip on the steering wheel had suddenly become vice-like.

 

“Ah, Sidney,” Snafu said, quieter this time. If Eugene had not been expecting a response he may have missed it as it nearly got lost against the roar of the engine.

 

“He’s getting married,” Eugene said quickly, chewing on his lower lip. “Done well for himself.”

 

“And what about you, Sledgehammer, you got your eye on anyone?”

 

“No, I err…I’ve never had much luck with the ladies,” Eugene coughed, releasing one hand off the steering wheel to run it awkwardly through his hair. That wasn’t exactly a lie but it seemed easier somehow to say that than to explain that since he’d been back from the war he hadn’t looked twice at a girl. The whole idea of courtship was just an annoyance to him and he simply had no interest in it. Besides, sooner or later they would ask him about the war and then what? He could lie, of course. But what was the point in keeping up a façade for the sake of something he wasn’t really that interested in? No, no, it seemed better to just avoid the trouble to begin with.

 

“Can’t imagine why,” Snafu said, his arm hanging out the side of the car window, fingers twinkling in the wind.

 

“Now there’s no need for sarcasm,” Eugene said, thankful Snafu had not picked up on what was running through his head.

 

“Who says I was being sarcastic?”

 

Eugene felt his ears warm at that comment despite the obvious lacing of humour. Snafu knew just how to get under his skin. It was an irritating hobby of his. He didn’t know what to say back to that, his toes curling in his shoes as he pressed down harder on the accelerator. Perhaps if he drove fast enough the engine would drown out any more embarrassing quips from the passenger seat.

 

“Pull in over there.” Snafu said after about twenty minutes of cruising.

 

Eugene obediently crept his fingers clockwise across the steering wheel to bring the ford into the dusty lay-by Snafu had gestured to. The car purred to a halt raising a cloud of dust that coated their shoes as the two men stepped out of the car. Eugene immediately grimaced at the volatile heat of the sun and rummaged in his pockets for his sunglasses. Snafu smirked over his shoulder at him before cocking his head in the direction of the small gated pathway that exited the road and seemed to snake into the nearby fields. From where Eugene was standing it seemed to weave through the lilting grass towards a patch of trees a little way off. Snafu was already scaling the gate, which appeared to be locked with a rusty chain. Eugene pursed his lips, watching the way his scrawny friend traversed the obstacle with ease. His lithe shoulder muscles rippled as he braced his weight on the top plank of wood before pushing his hips forwards, long legs easily snaking up and over. As he landed, cat-like, on his two feet on the other side he flashed a cheeky grin back at Eugene and dusted his hands off on his jeans.

 

“You comin’ sledgehamma’?” He called back. Eugene inwardly groaned just loud enough for his own ears. He scrunched the sleeves of his white shirt up to his elbows and pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose defiantly. As he placed his first foot on the lowest slat of the gate he paused briefly to assess the best way over it. Snafu had made it look so easy but Snafu also had the uncanny dexterity of a street cat. The way Eugene braced himself against the structure of the gate was nothing short of awkward and he scrambled his limbs up and over, tripping at the last moment and sprawling forwards into the dusty path. Two firm sun-licked hands grasped his elbows, fingers wrapped right around his arm to steady him. Snafu had lurched forwards to keep him upright, shit-eating grin visible even with Eugene’s eyes trained on the disturbed dirt beneath their feet.

 

“Don’t say a word,” Eugene hissed between his teeth before Snafu could open his mouth.

 

 

********

 

There was a soft haze of heat and dandelion fluff encircling the clearing where the two men sat. Snafu had taken his shoes and shirt off immediately and was reclining against the trunk of the largest tree, eyes closed, chewing on the tip of a slightly squashed cigarette. Eugene puffed out a breath to lift the damp strands of hair out of his eyes, a move which unfortunately only succeeded for a moment before they fell limply back against his forehead. He had rolled his shirt sleeves up higher still so they encircled his upper arms like crushed rolls of paper, wilting in the heat. His shirt was all but undone with a few buttons clinging to the last shred of modesty a shy man could have in the midday sun. While sitting beneath the trees, the two men were treated to the kaleidoscope of fluttering shadows from the leaves above playing against their skin. From behind the safety of his glasses, Eugene watched the way the patterns danced across the exposed chest of his friend who lay splayed a few feet away from him. It occurred to him that he had never seen him quite so relaxed as he was now. It was the closest to peace he had experienced in so-called peacetime. A welcome breeze rustled the grass between them, moving it hypnotically in his vision, and creeping up his exposed skin. The crucifix he wore fastened around his neck slipped between the folds of material, usually pressed against his chest, to swing like a pendulum just in the edge of his peripheral vision. It glinted, aflame as it caught the light, like neon tubing. A younger Eugene would have been comforted by this display, perhaps convinced of a higher power at work in that field, but the flash of gold did nothing but set his stomach on edge. His fingertips clasped the metal, hot and damp from his own skin, in an attempt to stop its rhythmic oscillations. He recalled the way he had done this exact same thing before the landing at Peleliu, and again, whenever terror had struck like lightning down his spine and across his ribcage. It became more infrequent as the war waged on, a little less every time he had watched the life drain from a man’s eyes. God was not to be found in war. Nor the people who served there. If God existed, he would spit at the things Eugene had done, what they all had done. Eugene’s grip on the crucifix suddenly loosened, his fingers retracting as though burned by his own thoughts. Were people like him and Snafu the waste product of war? Were those who died in combat doomed to the same fate? A necessary sacrifice so that those back home could go on living their good Christian lives. He looked over at Snafu, at the dime necklace which lay glittering against his skin. Visions of fat, waxy candles bleeding down over the edges of skulls loomed before him, rosaries swinging through a non-existent breeze, a Virgin Mary statuette, beautiful and tragic and weeping. He imagined the misty swamps of Louisiana, the silent creep of silhouettes through the stagnant water, crucifixes clutched to chests by bony fingers, a handful of glittering gold teeth, burning sage, soot-blackened hands, contorted doll faces, flames in dusty jars and idols made of sticks and string. Snafu didn’t talk about God much but Eugene imagined his version would be more at home with the things they had done. He shivered despite the heat. A movement which Snafu noticed, cocking his head up to look him in the eye.

 

“Can hear those cogs turnin’”

 

“It’s nothing,” Eugene sighed, twisting a blade of grass between his thumb and forefinger, trying not to make eye contact.

 

“Ain’t nothin’ if you’re pulling that face.”

Eugene pulled his eyes back to Snafu. His sharp features were twisted into a kind of concern Eugene had not seen often and he was sucking in his bottom lip. There was a weird pang of fondness that reverberated in Eugene’s chest at the worried look on his friend’s face. He considered lying- telling him he was thinking about Deacon or something. But the thing is that he had never been able to lie to Snafu, for those wintry eyes would bore right through his skull and expose every thought he tried to conceal. They had spent too many nights together in an isolated fox-hole at the end of the world. Far too many moments to count had passed unspoken between them where one or the other had expressed wordless doubt or panic. Eugene knew every line on Snafu’s face, the way his eyes narrowed when he was thinking hard, how he would roll a cigarette round in his mouth. There was no way he would fool him. Eugene released his grip on the grass in his fingertips and rubbed his palms on his thighs before asking, with trepidation, the question he had been ruminating on:

 

“Do you believe in God?”

 

Snafu released his lower lip as his face cracked into a wry smile. He leaned forwards a little, away from the tree trunk,

 

“Is that what’s botherin’ ya?”

 

It wasn’t an answer. Typically, Snafu had turned this around and pinned him with a wicked grin as though Eugene’s own answer would somehow be incriminating in itself. Eugene huffed,

 

“Don’t you think about it?”

 

“About what?” Snafu drawled, almost too casually, his eyelids doing that lulling thing that made him look sleepy and sultry all at once. Eugene felt the frustration rising in his chest at his friend’s defiance. He felt his hands gesticulating this before he could stop them and his response came out more clipped than he had intended,

 

“About what we’ve seen. What we’ve done.” His voice broke on the last word and he hung his head, hands now resting firmly on the grass beside him. When he spoke next it was barely audible and more to himself than anything. “I can’t get it out my head.” Snafu was watching him carefully now, his head tilted to the side, lips slightly parted as though he was about to speak but he remained agonisingly silent. “The more I think about it the less I can see a place for God in all of this.”

 

There was more silence then, broken only by a cricket’s song, somewhere way off in the tall grass. An eternity seemed to stretch between the two men and Eugene felt every inch of distance as though he were waking up alone again, steaming further and further away with every second on that godforsaken train. It was Snafu who broke the silence.

 

“You talkin’ like we still there.”

 

“I am, Snaf,” Eugene sighed. “Every night. Hell, Some nights it gets so bad-”

 

“You sleep alright last night?” Snafu interrupted, pointing almost accusingly. Eugene blinked and Snafu made an impatient noise. “After, I mean.” Eugene pauses for a moment, debating whether to weigh up the consequences of his answer before he nods. Snafu tilted his chin in response and his voice softened. “Y’want me to stay tonight?”

 

At this Eugene sighs, a long puff of air he feels he’s been holding stagnant in his chest for the past five minutes.

 

“My parents will-”

 

“Will what, huh?” Snafu interjected. He was getting to his feet now. “They ain’t ever gonna understand what you’ve been through, what we’ve been through.” He was pointing directly at him now, his hair ablaze with a halo of sunlight, voice edged with something Eugene couldn’t quite put his finger on. “Hell, Sledge, if they gon' be that bothered we jus’ do it like we did last night.” Eugene’s stomach swooped at the thought...the implication. It must have shown on his face because Snafu shrugged, stuffing his hands in his pockets, his voice now nothing more than a mumbling stream, “or we sleep out here in the sticks or somethin’, I don’t know.” He huffed out a breath and leaned against the tree, one ankle crossed over the other, as he fished for the carton of cigarettes. The uncomfortable silence returned. Eugene chewed on his lower lip, thumbing another blade of grass as he mulled over the idea of spending another secretive night pressed against his former comrade. Somehow the foxhole comparison was wearing just as thin on credibility as the sliver of grass in his hands as it bled green. He wasn’t sure why it felt sinful to him. Snafu’s voice once again broke through his thoughts:

 

“Y’know what...way I see it, Gene,” he said, cigarette between his teeth as he lit it. “Is if God exists... it’s him that should be askin’ our forgiveness.”

 

 

***

 

The day passed slowly, the heat unyielding, like a thick gauze against the skin. Despite the previous evening’s rain, the air was humid again very quickly and the pressure was enough to make Eugene’s head spin. He had taken to lying against the dry, cracked earth, letting the grass tickle his face in the rare moments of breeze. Snafu had curled up against the tree again, his chest now rising and falling in rhythmic movements, as Eugene watched him absentmindedly from the floor. Oh, how he envied that deep sleep. A smattering of opaque seed pods now littered his head like a crown and Eugene smiled as a few more fell from the tree. Snafu looked more at home here amongst the flora and fauna of the Alabama countryside than he had the day he’d arrived. The flowers and plants in his own front garden were pruned to perfection but here they were wild and free like Snafu. He wondered what home looked like in Louisiana, whether the swamps Snafu used to talk about lived up to the fairy-tale images in Eugene’s own head.

 

There was a restlessness in the Alabama air that day and Eugene could feel it prickling at his skin as if it were a tangible energy. He felt it hot-wire his brain and prevent him from any form of rest. Instead, his mind ticked over and over the events of the last 24 hours. He didn’t even notice when Snafu opened his sleepy eyes to watch his ruminations.

 

“You bring food, sledgehamma’?”

 

The sudden interruption made Eugene jump but he nodded and heaved himself up from the ground.

 

“Left it in the car,” He mumbled and began to walk back. Snafu lay back down, stretching in a way that made his bones audibly creak. Eugene returned to the car and after grappling with the stiff boot managed to retrieve the small brown, paper bag he had filled with some of the left-over breakfast items. It wasn’t much but the heat often left him without an appetite most days. As he ambled back over to the tree he watched as the sky darkened around him, fat pregnant clouds rolling across the sky. He barely felt the light dusting of rainwater against his skin before he heard the first low hum of thunder. The world was alive with the anticipative energy of a storm; everything smelt and tasted like metal and stars.

 

As he approached Snafu though, he nearly dropped the food he was carrying as the rush of gut-twisting adrenaline threatened to make him retch. Snafu was curled in on himself, hugging his knees in a foetal position on the ground. Another roll of thunder permeated the buzzing of the late afternoon air and Eugene watched in horror as his friend’s hands moved to clasp over his ears as he visibly shook from fear. From where he was stood Eugene cold only just see the flash of his gritted teeth but recognised that same near-paralysis he had experienced on so many nights since their return from the war. He dropped to his knees. His first instinct was to envelop Snafu in some kind of protective embrace but he froze when he remembered the way the sheets around his own body had quickly turned into a quagmire that threatened to suffocate him. The tell-tale signs of another clap of thunder had Eugene frantically placing his hands on Snafu’s, trying with desperation and with tremors of his own to...to do what he wasn’t sure, he couldn’t even get him to look at him let alone stand up. The inevitable crash against the purple sky was enough to drown out whatever Snafu was screaming which is why Eugene did not see it coming when Snafu suddenly launched at him, hands settling on his throat in a vice-like grip. The movement took Eugene so by surprise that he tumbled back, just having enough time to break his fall with his right elbow, while his left arm tried to loosen Snafu’s hold on his wind-pipe.

 

“Snaf, what the- it's me!” Eugene spluttered, “It’s me.” But Snafu’s wide eyes were more vacant than ever as if he wasn’t quite seeing what was in front of him. He was spitting a string of curses through gritted teeth, leaning his weight into his hands to try and force Eugene back against the grass. “Snaf...it’s okay, we’re in Mobile.” Eugene tried to say against the weight of the fingers. “We aren’t there anymore. The war is over. You’re safe. We’re safe. It’s okay. It’s okay.” He was babbling now but he didn’t know what to do. The man in front of him was not his friend. That was not Snafu. It was his face, his hands, his body but not his mind. Tears were streaming down Eugene’s face now, falling into his mouth and he could taste the salt as he desperately tried to repeat his affirmations. A distant part of his brain wondered if he was going to die, as his vision started to blur and his chest burned from lack of air. He noted the thought as it danced in his peripherals and wondered why he did not feel afraid. Perhaps it was the overriding feeling of panic and the need to help Snafu that had prevented him from worrying about his own fate. He had not felt the same way on Peleliu airfield where Snafu had fallen. He had been terrified. But then, they barely knew each other back then. Another crack of thunder resonated through Eugene’s consciousness and he became aware of the way Snafu’s fingers snatched away from his throat to cover his ears again. The rush of air stung Eugene’s lungs like it was itself lacerating every inch of his insides but the relief outweighed the horrible sensation as he gasped for more. Snafu was reeling from the noise as if he were also in pain. Eugene used his last ounce of strength to grasp at his shoulders. “It’s me. It’s Eugene.” Snafu was already reaching for his throat again, the touch of Eugene’s hands like fire on his exposed skin but the mention of Eugene’s name seemed to soften his features, his hands slowing in mid-air as though he were a clockwork toy winding down. His fingers this time brushed at the reddened area of skin where they had previously sought to cause harm and settled awkwardly in the hair at the nape of Eugene’s neck. Snafu seemed to knot his fingers here, almost painfully, as though grounding himself in the moment as Eugene tried to steady his breathing, tense and ready for another possible attack.

 

“Gene?” Snafu finally whimpered, his voice cracking. He was still straddling Eugene’s knees; Eugene keeping balance beneath him by leaning back on his hands, his head still in the clutch of Snafu’s long fingers. The rain was beginning to pick up pace through the leaves of the trees, fat droplets of water landing on their skin.

 

“It’s me, buddy,” Eugene whispered, not knowing if the moisture on his face was sweat, tears or rain. He could see the way Snafu’s face crumpled at his words and his body sagged, sitting back on his feet. The whole time he kept his hands in Eugene’s hair. Eugene leaned forwards, one hand supporting his weight, the other outreached, fingertips brushing Snafu’s bony chest. “It’s okay.”

 

“Gonna be sick,” Snafu muttered before releasing Eugene from his grasp and rolling off him and onto all fours. Eugene could only rub circles into the place between his shoulder blades as half sobs and retches wracked his body. Although nothing much was coming up, Snafu remained stiff in his position on his knees, head bowed, until the time between heaves grew to allow him to sit up a little. “Coulda killed you.” His face was an unusual shade of greeny-grey and when he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand he closed his eyes as if faint.

 

“Yeah, well you didn’t,” Eugene exhaled, braced to help if he started vomiting again.

 

“S’not the point,” Snafu murmured, not making eye contact but staring defiantly down at his hands.

 

“I made it through the entire war without getting killed, you think I was gonna let you finish me off?” Eugene said, nudging him a little. It was a poor attempt at humour.

 

“Eugene,” Snafu protested softly.

 

“I get it,” Eugene murmured softly, sitting down gently next to Snafu. “We just gotta learn how to live with it.”

 

“I need a drink,” Snafu coughed, wiping his mouth again with his sleeve.

 

“Come on, I’ll drive us back.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eugene has a realisation and there's a lot of god-fearing internalised homophobia and weird feelings and whiskey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me so long to get this right and idk if it is even there but here it is

Eugene watched as Snafu knocked back the first glass of whiskey with ease as if it were water. The second was a similar affair. By the third Eugene was concerned.

 

“Hey, don’t you think you should take it easy, buddy?”

 

“I’ve been drinking far longer than you, Sledgehammer,” Snafu retorted. He was reclining gracelessly on Eugene’s bed, the bottle of whiskey clasped in his right hand, an unlit cigarette in the other. The dark liquid sloshed a little, catching the early evening sunshine in dancing gold fractals that projected on his ruddy cheeks like nebulae. His tight curls lay tousled across his forehead from his own anxious hands running through them on their journey home.

They had driven in silence, Eugene had thought that best, the windows rolled down to let Snafu breathe. When they had arrived home, Eugene had ushered Snafu upstairs before scanning the house for signs of life. His parents were still out, thank god. He didn’t want to have to explain this to them. He hoped his father would not notice any difference in the way the car was parked from this morning.

He could see it from where he was standing now, behind the window of his bedroom, the frame slightly ajar to let in the smell of the sticky afternoon turning sour as evening approached. He took a sip from the glass tumbler clasped in his hands, damp with sweat, to soothe any nerves that threatened to break through the film of liquor he was laying over this afternoon. His tongue felt loose in his mouth, lolling against his front teeth, the taste of smoky whiskey ripe in his throat; that comfortable, heavy weight of sleep that comes with drinking too much alcohol. It was too early in the day to be this drunk.

 

He’s still aware, however, of the fragility in the air, prickling at his skin, reminding him of the way both their vulnerabilities had been laid bare like bleached bones over the past twenty-four hours. Any doubts he had that things had changed between them had been squashed beneath the weight of trauma and the way that it had similarly burrowed so deeply beneath their skin. They had both shared this burden silently, afraid to fall beneath its weight, the pallbearers of the friends they had already buried. At least now Eugene knew there was someone else there to pick him up. Because Snafu had slipped into the cracks of his most broken parts like liquid gold and fused the shattered pieces back together. They were bonded for life, their intangible cords forged in the blistering heat of the Pacific Islands from ash and blood and metal. They had experienced things together that no living men should have to go through. He had seen things with Snafu that he knew he would never be able to talk about with someone else. Not his parents.

Not even Sid.

Eugene thinks about the day they learned the war was over and then the night sat beneath the stars. Their jubilation turned sombre and Snafu’s eyes cast to the heavens: _what do we do now?_

The memory sits uncomfortably like its stuck in his throat. What would he do now? What would the future bring for him... a family... a wife? Would he find someone he could share everything with, his memories, his secrets, the good and the bad? Eugene doubted it. He had never yearned for marriage like he was told he should. Even before the war the idea seemed almost lonely. Trapped with another person for all eternity, joined by God and the law, in this life and the next. That existence frightened him. He daren't imagine sharing his most painful, intimate secrets with someone who would never- could never- understand. Not like Snafu understood.

He supposed it made sense then, in a way, that it was that familiar presence that had stopped the nightmares last night. The unspoken understanding. The lack of judgement and of pity. The first person to share his bed and now maybe the last. Because, really, who else could take his place?

Perhaps they would grow old together. Two war vets, chugging through life together, bitter and broken but not lonely. The thought appealed to him far more than marrying a stranger who would never truly know the real Eugene Sledge. Was it so strange for two broken men to find solace in each other’s company- to reject societal norms for the sake of some peace and quiet?

A strange thought occurred to him then.

What if Snafu met someone? What if he married? He was always so vocal about his conquests back in Louisiana and Eugene had been witness to his outrageous flirtation on the train back home. Some women probably found that charming? It was foolish to assume that Snafu shared Eugene’s ambivalence to marriage. He would probably be much happier with a family. Eugene could not be a part of that. And who was he to deny Snafu this happiness? Yet the image of him married, settled down, with kids seemed to sink its claws into Eugene’s skin like a tick. It left a bad taste in his mouth and no amount of whiskey was washing it away.

He guessed that it was because in some strange, fucked-up way Snafu was the closest thing he had ever had to a soul-mate. And at the end of this week, or however long Snafu and him stayed in this comfortable pocket of limbo, he would leave. And Eugene would be alone again, forced to get on with his civilian life, separated from the only person in the world who understood why he woke screaming every night.

Eugene tapped the tip of his pipe against his back teeth, still staring intently at his father’s car parked as carefully as he could manage on the driveway below.

“You got a girl back home?” Eugene blurted out suddenly, his cheeks flushed a boozy red, eyes still trained on the black Ford. He could hear Snafu shift his weight on the bed.

“Why do you ask?” Snafu’s voice floated over from behind him, infuriatingly nonchalant. Eugene licked his lips, the heat rising in his face.

“Just wondered,” he tossed back in what he hoped was a casual tone. _Just answer the question,_ he thought, the end of his pipe now clenched between his molars in a way which made his jaw ache.

“No girl,” Snafu said after what seemed like an age. Eugene nodded, removing the pipe from his mouth and pursing his lips. Was he relieved? He couldn’t say.

“You got music?” Snafu said, breaking the silence that had fallen uncomfortably between them. Eugene nodded and turned to his desk to flick the switch on his radio. The static ripped through the tension in the room like a sudden peppering of machine gun rounds making them both jump. Eugene noted a spilt slick of whiskey on Snafu’s fingers as he stood up and had the strange urge to lick it off. He swallowed the impulse down with another mouthful of the burning liquid in his own glass. Snafu approached the radio hesitantly, the spidery fingers of his free hand twisting the analogue knobs until a jazzy tune crept through the white noise. Snafu turned and grinned and Eugene felt as always that he was running to catch up with whatever Snafu was planning. “Dance with me.”

It wasn’t a question.

Eugene stared at him, bewildered as he tried to understand what his friend had just asked him. Snafu started to sway a little in time to the beat, his mouth still pulled into that intoxicated smirk. He was humming along to the melody, his body following in a roll of long limb and sinewy muscle. It was weird to watch. The movements seemed incongruous coming from Snafu whom Eugene usually associated with hunched, awkward scowling.

“How drunk are you?” Eugene asked, trying not to betray the odd fluttering sensation he was experiencing behind his navel. Snafu’s top lip pulled a little further back over his teeth as he laughed, one hand reaching to rub the back of his neck, the other extending out in a kind of invitation. Eugene simply stared at his exposed palm.

“You heard me, Sledgehammer,” he said, ducking his head before repeating it again, “dance with me.”

Eugene felt his jaw slacken a little as his mouth hung open in sheer dumbfounded confusion. But the flicker of disappointment that licked over the Cajun’s face at his hesitation was enough for him to knock back the last of his liquor and tentatively place his hand in his. Someone squeezed their fingers reassuringly but Eugene wasn’t sure which of them it was. All he knew was that he was suddenly dancing, hand in hand with his best friend, to some ditzy tune, drunker than he’s ever been in his life.

He can’t pinpoint when Snafu starts to draw him in but they end up dancing so closely together that he becomes mesmerised by the way Snafu’s eyelashes dust across his cheeks when he blinks. He can’t tear his eyes away. Somewhere in the back of his mind he’s aware that the music has slowed down, no longer racing along but gliding, and they’re mirroring it with their movements. He’s danced this way before, once, with a girl at a school dance and he had been too preoccupied with not standing on her feet to enjoy it. Now though they moved gently as though in each other's orbit, like Snafu was some alien planet and he the moon. Like they belonged together. In this moment, Eugene could not even muster the strength to fight the thought. He would not let his mind wander to those places. He would enjoy this one, small moment of happiness.

He's unlucky because the heat from his face shows so brilliantly against his pale skin, pooling beneath his cheeks. Surely, it's the alcohol, he thinks, as he leans into the space between them a little, a movement Snafu doesn't miss as his free hand comes up to rest on Eugene's hip. If it's not the booze, then he has a problem. Snafu is humming gently now, his fingers twisting into the belt loops of Eugene's trousers. It should feel weird but it doesn't. Eugene’s gaze drops to look and he watches, fascinated. Their foreheads are almost touching, he realises. If he tilted his head up now, just a fraction he could- if he wanted...

In his mind their surroundings melt and shift, no longer his childhood bedroom, instead a strange yet comfortable home miles away from here, from anyone. Photographs of a long and happy life litter every surface, the desk, the mantel, the walls, snapshots of precious memories telling their life story. Together. It's almost tangible. Eugene could make believe it possible. He sees a collection of Eugenes and Snafus smiling and laughing and living. There’s a growing weight of realisation in his mind, pressing against his skull. Or it could be the whiskey. He didn’t know. He felt dizzy, borderline nauseous, as his head swam with a hundred ephemeral timelines. His body sagged a little, slipping so that his chin rested upon Snafu’s shoulder. He let out a small sigh, shutting his eyes as though he could somehow better rearrange the scenes before him behind closed eyelids. The hand that had been resting on Eugene’s hip ghosted up to the small of his back, pressing flush against his skin, hot despite the cool material of his white shirt. He’s vaguely aware of the small circles its rubbing gently there, lulling him further into this cushioned fog he’s struggling to see past. Somewhere inside him, his rational self is screaming at him to wake up, that at some point they will have to face reality but he can’t hear it anymore, because Snafu is humming again.

They stay like that for a while. Eugene isn’t sure how long. It’s only when the sounds of voices drift lazily up from outside that he notices the blushing light has dimmed. They pull apart and Eugene immediately misses all of Snafu’s sharp edges. He’s aware that they only have a few moments before his parents get back and he doesn’t know what to say. He just stares at Snafu who stares back all misty-eyed like he’s just woken up. Eugene clears his throat, two years of friendship sat at the back of his tongue behind clenched teeth, but before he can say a word they both jump at the sound of rattling keys and the front door swinging open below them. Snafu sways a little, his footing unsteady now and he brings a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

“Think I need t’lie down,” he slurs. Eugene opens his mouth to protest, to keep him there just a moment longer so he has time to formulate words but Snafu is already leaving. Eugene stands and listens to the footsteps creak down the hallway and the sound of his parents chattering nonchalantly downstairs. He sways a little, his stomach a mess of nerves and alcohol. There’s an odd sensation rising in his chest, putting pressure on his sternum and his throat. It’s as though the words he had been trying to find where forcing their way out of his body from deep within him. It was only at the last second that he realised and fell to his knees beside his waste paper basket and vomited.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I too have weird AF dreams when I've been drinking. I feel like this chapter took me ages to work out so I'm sorry.

It’s late...or early. His head is pounding, his eyes feel swollen behind his lids and he’s desperate for the release of sleep. But Eugene can’t sleep. He can’t sleep because he nearly kissed his best friend. _He can’t sleep because he held his best friend in his arms and he wanted to kiss him._

Eugene released the breath he was holding and felt it puff the sweat slick strands off his forehead. The worst part is, he thinks, is that all he can think about is how he wished he had.

He thinks about it again. Pressing their lips together, tasting the salt. Maybe curling his fingers in those wild curls. His gut twists at that and his breath catches a little. His fingers are absent-mindedly fiddling with his night shirt as he thinks about how it would feel. Strange? Perhaps. In his mind, the Snafu before him pulls away, a look of confusion on his face and...and something else. Disgust? Horror? The illusion shatters before him and he sighs. He was stupid to think that Snafu would share even an ounce of this weird infatuation. If that was what it was.

He had noted that this realisation seemed oddly familiar. He had experienced flashes of it before, he realises. A few times in the past two days even. Certainly, since he’d returned home. Waking, screaming, searching for him. And the bitter realisation when his reaching fingers closed on nothing but empty air. Had he known then? He wasn’t sure. But these whispers pre-dated his return from the war. He recognised them too from moments shared in the hot, heady nights of the Pacific islands, listening to shells screaming outside their fox hole, a glance of understanding shared between them. As the weeks dragged on he had been a little less afraid to die with Snafu beside him.

God, had it been there the whole time? No... the first time they had met Eugene had thought Snafu was kind of an asshole. If he thought about it hard enough, he could probably picture him back then, all elbows and collarbones and a clever, sharp mouth. He had not thought of him as anything more than a pain in his ass. No, this feeling had come later, slowly, so slow he had barely noticed it. Until...until now and it seemed to intoxicate his entire being. Every bone in his body felt alight with it, this warmth spreading from rib to spine, up to the crown of his head and back down. He waits for the shame to hit, that gut twisting sickness drilled into him by years of listening to sermons on Sundays, and swallow this feeling whole. He feels tears prick the corners of his eyes when it doesn't come. It isn’t fair how sweet this tastes. This unattainable dream.

When he had thought about what his life would be like, the way all young men do, he had always pictured getting married and having kids because it was what was expected. Although, he could never quite picture it right. There was always a wife, faceless and amorphic. But he never yearned for the physical touch of a woman like he heard others do. The thought of being with a girl had always just been that: a thought. Something that he noted as an inevitability but had no real desire to pursue. Was this why? Was he now cursed to picture Snafu’s misty eyes instead? The thought of Snafu being the one he would experience his first time with sent a jolt of something straight down his navel to his groin. He had to shut his eyes quickly and think about his breathing, the pain in his head, literally anything else. Best not to open that can of worms right now.

He thought about Sid instead; the way he had felt about him when they were younger, innocently and untarnished by social expectations. A handful of summers passing by in an idyllic haze of interlocking fingers, lying next to one another on the cool grass with butterflies in their stomachs. There were no butterflies for Snafu. No giddiness. No innocence. No, instead he just felt sick with fear. Fear laced with the sweetest note of unrelenting need. A need to be close to him, to exist in each other’s space, to protect him, to comfort him, to grow old with him, to-

The feeling is blossoming in his chest, like flowers blooming in his lungs, beautiful and intoxicating but he can’t breathe. He’s completely overwhelmed and exhausted and resigned to just lying on his back and letting these feelings wash over him like waves over sand. He's lightheaded and fading, giving into the pull of sleep against his aching body. He can feel his chest rising and falling in a slower, languid rhythm as he slips away into unconsciousness. He briefly wonders if he’s damned; his immortal soul forbidden from entering the Kingdom of Heaven for all eternity. If somehow the unspeakable horrors of the war were pardoned then it seemed unfair to him that his undoing would be love. This forbidden love that he’d held clasped so tightly to his chest for so long that he had almost convinced himself it wasn’t there.

‘Love,’ he thinks, smiling through the mire of imminent sleep, it’s the first time he’s allowed himself to think that.

 

***

 

He feels a weight at the end of the bed and groans, sitting up, the bed sheets tangled around his legs in a way which makes him want to kick and thrash. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t because Snafu is sat at the end of the bed, looking at him with those wide eyes.

“Can’t sleep?” Eugene croaks, his voice still heavy with sleep, too tired to even begin to address the dozens of emotions welling up inside him. He grinds the heel of his palm into his eye socket in an attempt to clear his eyelashes of gritty sleep and waits for Snafu to say something.

He doesn’t respond.

What he does do is move, crawling up the bed like a cat, softly and silently, just the springs of the bed creaking with his weight. He stops when they are nose to nose, Eugene pushed back against the headboard. Eugene’s breath is stuck in his throat, his heart hammering.

“Snaf, what-”

“Shhhhh,”

Snafu settles in Eugene’s lap, thighs clamped either side of his hips and Eugene swallows a slight groan at the way his weight rests against his crotch.

“What’re you d-”

There’s not time to finish that sentence because Snafu brings his fingertips up to graze Eugene’s jaw like he’s trying to catch falling snow. The air itself freezes as he closes the distance between them to bring their noses together. Eugene’s eyelids flutter shut as their lips press against one another for the first time, his whole body taken over by an overwhelming warmth spreading from the contact. He’s not sure what’s happening but in that moment he doesn’t really care. He is consumed by the heat in his lap and against his mouth, his whole body alight with it. His hands are shaking as he brings them up to twist in the curls at the nape of Snafu’s neck. They don’t feel quite right somehow but he can’t seem to put his finger on what it is in that moment. Snafu is murmuring something against his lips now, pulling back a little and Eugene misses the contact. He leans forward to capture his mouth with his again but one of Snafu’s hands is on his chest before he can, his arm taught between them. He realises then that the words falling from Snafu’s mouth are numbers: _one, two, three, four._ He’s counting. Eugene shakes his head, confused for a moment before he remembers where he’s heard the mantra before. He remembers watching a marine count the seconds between the shells exploding around them deep, deep into the night, rocking back and forth. The hand that’s not holding Eugene at arm's length comes up to rest at Snafu’s temple, his eyes widening a little with every word that falls from his mouth.

“You’re okay... you’re okay,” Eugene stutters, his hands gripping the covers of his bed because Snafu won’t let him near. He starts to panic. The fabric feels strange on his skin and Eugene glances down to see the crisp, white sheets melt and run through the gaps in his fingers, suddenly dark and viscous. He’s not in bed anymore. There’s mud everywhere, running in rivulets on slopes all around him that only seem to be growing higher until they’re both sat at the bottom of deep, dark hole. The water is pouring now, drowning out the noises coming from Snafu. Eugene can only see his mouth forming the shapes of words, his lips cracked and splattered with mud, spitting it out, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. They have to get out, Eugene realises. Or they will both drown.

He tries to stand but his limbs are heavy with his water-logged clothes and the mud has risen higher and its tugging his feet from underneath him. He falls into the quagmire developing around him and the mud seeps into his pores, clogging his ears and nostrils as he frantically tries to wipe his eyes clean. He can’t see Snafu now, his vision obscured by the sludge forming on his eyelashes. He calls for him, his arms outstretched against the current of the swirling bog but there is no response but the sound of water slapping against the surface of the ooze surrounding him and his own heartbeat thumping against his eardrums. Eugene is the one counting now- _one, two, three, four_ \- waiting for it all to be over. He’s not sure if he’s crying because his face is caked in mud and he can’t breathe, his lungs slowly choked and filling with dark sludge. _Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten_. He can’t see anymore; the whole world has been swallowed by darkness. There’s nothing but the roaring in his ears, so loud now, he can’t hear the words from his own mouth. He’s mouthing them still. _Eleven, twelve, thirteen-_

“Eugene.”

His eyes snap open at the sound of his name and he gasps in pain as the air rushes into his lungs like fire on gasoline. The mud seems to fall from his skin and dissolve into the air like sea foam. Where it had been there was now the cool, damp touch of bed sheets wet with sweat, tangled across his body. His hands, clasped in the material, visibly shook with the tremors of the sobs wracking his body and the thump, thump, thump of his guttering heart. He drank the night air in with the desperation of a dying man despite the pain and confusion he felt. It was only when searing hot skin pressed flush against him that he realised why he had awoken.

“Eugene,” the voice said again, in a strangled whisper. Snafu had pulled him upright and set him flush against the bare skin of his torso. Eugene let himself be moved, too weak to protest. He was still shaking, even when his wet cheek lay against Snafu’s shoulder, his nose buried in the crook of his neck. He smelt like whiskey, still, and that unmistakable scent of cigarettes and pine.

“Are you...” Eugene started, his voice cracking. He felt a raw sting of shame as he choked down a sob, gasping, his fingers fisting into the material of Snafu’s pyjama pants. “Are you real?” He manages to whisper, against the skin of his neck, the tears still rolling down his face. He feels Snafu tense beneath him at the question. God, _that dream..._

“M’real, Cher” he hears in response. Eugene doesn’t try and move to look at him, he’s not sure if he can. He just lets the hand on the base of his spine rub small circles in the small of his back and listens to the sound of blood pulsing through the skin of Snafu’s neck. Neither of them says anything for a while. Eugene lets his heart rate return to something resembling normal, his breathing slowing to a comfortable rhythm, before he pulls back to sit up. Snafu eyes him with a look that says he might break at any second. Eugene can still make out the red rings around his eyes even in the dim light of the bedroom.

“I’m sorry for waking you,” he manages after a moment. He fidgets, the edge of the bedsheet twisting in his fingers. Snafu nods slowly, his eyes never leaving Eugene’s face.

“S’okay,” he says, licking his dry lips and Eugene can’t help the way his stomach swoops at the sight, god damn it. Snafu clambers over to the side of the bed nearest the wall and slots himself in under the covers there. He looks so small underneath all the material. “Lie down,” he says, looking up at Eugene, his eyes glinting in the half light. Eugene obeyed, lowering himself to lie stiffly next to him, careful to leave a strip of space between them. Even with their bodies concealed beneath the weight of the covers he can feel the heat and closeness of Snafu’s skin through his own pyjamas. The beginning of his dream comes flooding back. What had once felt so easy and natural now felt sordid as though he was tainting Snafu with his own thoughts just by lying here next to him. It felt shameful to him to know what he had felt in that dream- what he had wanted- when Snafu was doing nothing but try and help. The whole idea of sharing a bed now just felt like a bad idea, the two of them so close, with Eugene’s mind running wild, spilling over like the water and mud in his dream. No, he thought, he should just tell Snafu to leave. It would be easier that way. He would just say to him th-

Eugene felt Snafu shift next to him and felt his hand nudge his own, sliding their fingers together. He froze, his whole body alight with panic, as Snafu squeezed his hand gently. His heart was threatening to burst through his chest with the way it was beginning to hammer against his ribs- he was surprised Snafu couldn’t hear it. He took a shaky breath, trying to keep quiet, so as not to draw attention to the alarm bells that were sounding off between his ears. He was practically shaking trying to keep his body relaxed and pliant, trying not to overthink the small gesture, his skin too warm now beneath the covers. God, why was this happening?

He didn’t dislike the feeling. He wanted to. That wasn’t the point. It was all too much and not enough at the same time. He felt like he was going to combust from this one insignificant action. God, how had everything changed over the course of one evening? He sighed deeply, deep enough to draw a noise from his chest. Snafu shifted next to him, clearing his throat. He withdrew his hand from Eugene’s in one, smooth movement and turned onto his side and faced the wall. Eugene turned his head, chasing the movement with his eyes as he became instantly displeased by the lack of contact.

“Goodnight,” came a small voice from that side of the bed, smothered a little by layers of blanket.

Eugene stared into the darkness for a second, the heat still in his cheeks, his heart still beating frantically in his chest as he ached from lying so still.

“Goodnight,” he whispered into the darkness, too quiet perhaps for Snafu to hear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~angst~
> 
> It breaks my heart to write Eugene like this


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eugene has to deal with the fallout of the previous nights' events.

Eugene is not surprised to find that when he wakes Snafu is no longer there. The sun is beaming in high through the gaps in his curtains, the dust dancing in the glow, and he figures it must be mid-morning now. Snafu must have slipped out sometime before the sun rose but Eugene can’t help but cast a wistful glance to the empty space in the bed next to him. His body is stiff with the uncanny feeling of a good night's rest but his mouth is dry and cottony from the previous night's drinking. He wets his lips with the little moisture in his mouth and sits up, brushing his hair back off his face. He swings his legs off the bed and plants his feet firmly on the wooden floor. There's a moment where his vision lurches in time with his stomach and there's a vague throbbing deep in his head. Last night's whiskey threatens to make another appearance until he counts slowly to ten, his head resting in his hands, elbows on knees.

The events of the previous evening lurk timidly at the edge of the fog in his brain, threatening to come forwards again. He knows they have to talk; keeping this inside feels like he's strapped to a ticking time bomb, better to safely dismantle it than let it go off on its own. One thing is for sure though, he thinks as he flexes his tired muscles, he needs to feel human again first.

 

The pipes creak and groan a little as Eugene turns the knob for the shower. The slight delay echoes the way his own brain is struggling to function this morning but when the water hits his skin he reacts instantly, jumping at the sudden shock of cold. It only takes a few seconds to warm up but Eugene loiters at the edge of the bath tub hugging his elbows. When he finally ducks under the relief is instantaneous; there’s something about getting clean now that really grounds him. He takes his time lathering up the sponge with soap until it fizzes in his hands when he squeezes it. The bubbles seem to grow from nowhere like clouds then flutter off in small groups to dissolve on the porcelain. The steam rises around him in plumes as though he and all the objects in the tub were being transported to somewhere otherworldly. He allows the water to run down his face, washing away the salt from his nightmares, his eyes closed as he says a silent prayer thanking god for indoor plumbing. The ache in his limbs slips from him together with the suds that run off his fingers and congregate in a gaggle at the plug grate.

When he finally turns the shower off the bathroom is thick with an ethereal vapour that clings to the mirror and the windows like cake frosting. Wrapping a towel round his middle with one hand he reaches with the other to open the narrow window. The steam billows out and he can feel the heat from the approaching mid-day sun on his hands as he fastens the window on the latch. The past few days’ turbulent weather seems to have done little for the Alabama heat but the only humidity he now feels in the air is the rapidly dissipating mist from his shower. He runs the tap on the sink and splashes a bit of cold water on his face. His skin feels tight and fresh. He jams his tooth brush in his mouth and chews absent-mindedly on the bristles as he searches in the medicine cabinet for the toothpaste. His fingers weave between the bottles and tubs before triumphantly seizing the desired tube and wrestling with the cap. The medicine cabinet swings shut a little too abruptly when he pushes it and the noise makes him jump. His eyes flicker from the toothpaste to the offending sound and he catches his own glare in the mirror, his face dripping and warped in the glass. He puts the tube down, removes the tooth brush from his clamped jaw, sets it back in the holder and smears the moisture off the surface of the mirror to get a better look. When he sees his scowling face he makes an effort to relax, smoothing the lines between his eyebrows and softening his features. It’s the same face he’s always had he thinks- same brown eyes, same long nose, same wide mouth- but there’s something odd that he can’t put his finger on. It’s then that he realises that he hasn’t really looked at himself properly since the war. His hair’s gotten long, the damp strands that had once brushed his forehead were now falling in his eyes. He pushes them back, slicking them to his head with both hands. There are dark, bruise-like shadows under his eyes, like spilled ink against his ivory skin. There’re certainly more freckles than there were before and he’s briefly reminded of the ever-changing smattering of stars he’d spend each night counting from his foxhole, each cluster of melanin a different constellation. He moves then to his mouth, still pressed into a fine line, although he never caught himself smiling too often in the mirror anyway. No, he couldn’t place what it was that was unnerving. Perhaps it was simply age taking its toll but he didn’t think so. He felt, deep down that his face served a different purpose now. That the lines of his features were etched with torment and the hollows beneath his eyes and where his cheeks concaved held the shadows of war. He’d seen it reflected in his parents’ expressions when they thought he wasn’t looking. And he’d recognised it from Snafu and Burgie and De L’Eau and all his other comrades. They were all collateral damage.

 

For the first time since he’d awoken, he thought about Snafu and about what had happened last night. He thought about the way they’d fit together as they had danced, how he’d awoken screaming once again to Snafu’s arms around him and the way their fingers had laced together so easily. He felt his stomach swoop as his heart tripped over a new, faster rhythm. He catches the look that spreads across his face with the blush on his cheeks in the mirror; it even reaches his eyes. He allows himself that fleeting high for a millisecond before being pulled abruptly down by the weight of reality. They would have to talk today, he thought again. There was no more putting it off. Snafu was likely already awake and waiting for Eugene. A thought occurred to him then that made his already desperate heart skip a beat. Eugene had been drunk. That he knew for a fact, the vomit and the hangover were enough to attest to that. So, then what about Snafu? His friend who had been drinking far more than he. Would he even remember? Did Eugene want him to? Oh god, Eugene began to panic, what if he remembers and he's angry? Had Eugene taken advantage of his friends’ intoxication to push his weird, subconscious agenda? Shit, he thought, he needed to find Snafu. He needed to apologise or set this straight somehow. Yes, they needed to talk. They were friends. They could sort this out and then Eugene could just...put this whole thing behind him...away somewhere in the depths of his brain and just-

Eugene shook his head. He had to be logical about this even though there was nothing about the situation he deemed logical. First, he would put some clothes on. Then he would find Snafu and he would assess the situation. Only then could he decide what came next.

 

*

 

It took Eugene a good ten minutes of sitting on the edge of his bed and staring at his toes before he built up the courage to leave his room. He froze again at the door to the spare room as though balanced on the edge of a precipice. He had no plan, no grand gesture, no clue in fact of what he was going to say. He took one long, deep breath and then he knocked. He immediately tensed, waiting for Snafu to shout back, whether good or bad.

Silence.

He knocked again, louder this time.

“Snaf? Buddy, are you awake?” He called, his voice shaking slightly, listening for the response. When none came, he turned the door knob and opened the door to the bed room.

 

The room was empty. The bedsheets were straight and crisp, obviously I slept in, and any trace of Snafu's presence had been removed. Granted, he had very few belongings with him anyway but their absence was all of a sudden glaring. Even his sea sack was gone. Eugene’s heart was beating fast again, he turned and walked down the landing, his footsteps drumming a similar rhythm. He looked in the bathroom, no sign. He hurried down the stairs, his eyes darting around to any of the other open doors. As he reached the ground floor his eyes fixed on the front door. Was he outside? It was summer after all and the house retained heat and became stuffy the later in the day it got. He began to stride to the door.

 

“Eugene,” his mother’s voice called through from the dining room. Eugene stopped, his feet skidding a little on the floor. Damnit. He back tracked slightly to look through the doorway into the dining room. His mother was sat with her hands folded on top of the smooth mahogany, her mouth forced into a line that she probably thought constituted a smile. Eugene fiddled with the bottom of his shirt, eyes darting to the front door as though he could somehow forgo this interaction by willing the door closer with his mind.

“Have you seen Sn...Merriell?” He asked in what he hoped was a casual tone. His mother's mouth twitched slightly and she laced her fingers together.

"Why don't you come sit down," she said her voice bright but crisp. “Have some breakfast?”

"I can't right now-" He starts, half turning towards the door. It’s been weeks since either of his parents tried to coerce him into eating a meal with him. It usually ended in an argument with Eugene flat out refusing to attend whatever social event his mother had lined up for him.

"Eugene, please..." His mother says firmly. Eugene sighs, his jaw already tensing.

"I need to find Merriel, he’s not in his room.”

“Your friend left this morning, I assumed you knew,” his mother replied, her eyes watching Eugene carefully. Left? Eugene’s stomach drops with the weight of these words.

“What? When? Where’d he go?” His response came out more desperate than intended but in the moment he can’t quite bring himself to care.

“He didn't say where, Eugene.” His mother sighs then stands. “Look, I think we need to talk. How long is he going to stay here? Don’t look at me like that, I just don’t think it’s good for you. You need to try and look to the future. Your father and I-”

“Please stop,” Eugene breathes, heat rising to his face.

“We just want what’s best for you, dear,” his mother carries on, approaching him slowly like he might startle and scarlet. “You don't eat, you barely sleep. You’ve hardly seen Sidney since you’ve been home, let alone any of your other friends, or been into town to meet folks. That man is a constant reminder of... well, you don’t need that. You’re withdrawn. You’re not yourself.” She places her hand on his cheek in a way that Eugene once found comforting. ‘I just...I just want my boy back.”

“Well he can’t come back,” Eugene snapped, turning his head so his mother’s hand stayed suspended in mid air. “That boy was lost the day I left Mobile.”

“Eugene, please.”

“You just need to accept that it’s different now.” Eugene stepped back away from his mother’s hovering hand. “I’m different. I can’t be who you want me to be. What I’ve seen...what I’ve done...” He can feel the pressure in his chest rising and he struggles to force the words from his lips. “I can’t...none of you will ever understand. Not even Sid. Snafu’s the only one who’s ever gonna get it. This is the first time in weeks I’ve felt like I can- like I can breathe and now-“ God, he needs to leave before he falls to his knees and tells her everything. “Now I....I've gotta go find him."

He’d managed to retreat back close enough to wrap his fingers around the door knob of the front door. His mother let her out stretched arm fall flatly against her side as he did. The look on her face was one that Eugene could not places; it was confusion and disappointment and fear and acceptance and something else he wasn’t quite sure of. He watched the emotions pool on her face then dissolve into that quiet acceptance he was so used to by now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this chapter was a bit filler-y but it was necessary. Also someone on tumblr linked this fic on a recommended reading list a few weeks back and it happened upon my dash and I nearly cried. Just wanted to say that every time someone comments or leaves kudos it literally makes my day, you are all so kind.

**Author's Note:**

> I have nothing to say other than this is a small part of a larger mess I've been writing when it's slow at work don't look at me


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